Whale Watching Report

One of several breaches today!!

Two orcas wave goodbye to us!!

We had some good wildlife sightings as soon as we left the dock today. A great blue heron was perched on the breakwater of Cap Sante Marina, and he flew right over a common loon feeding in the water below. We decided to start our trip by cruising through the inner San Juan Islands today. At James Island we spotted a bald eagle perched on a tree. On our way through the San Juans we spotted several harbor seals on the rocks and in the water. As we entered Boundary Pass we saw lots and lots of harbor porpoises. It seemed like the porpoises were everywhere. We were in Canada by the time we caught up with 7 transient orcas just east of Active Pass. They had been steadily moving north, but they slowed down and started milling around in one spot just as we arrived on the scene. They were becoming very active and behaving as if they had just made a kill, but we couldn't tell for sure. During our visit with the orcas they spyhopped several times and did many breaches. Even the big male breached for us once. The male appeared to be courting a female as they swam alone most of the time as the rest of the pod played around about 75 yards away. The group of females and young was rolling around, spyhopping, tailslapping, and lunging out of the water on several occasions. We did see a lot of tail lobs today and just before we departed the scene two orcas held their tail flukes in the air at the same time as if to wave goodbye to us. It was a great transient orca show and the orcas didn't hardly move at all the whole time we were watching them. They just milled around in the same spot. On our way back to the dock we saw many more harbor porpoises, and we saw found a big Steller sea lion sitting proudly on a rock off of Sucia Island. The widllife sightings were great today, and the weather was perfect too!! Naturalist Bart Rulon